A Prologue

In Surrey, in early June, Harry decided he was no longer sorry for shattering every magical instrument in Dumbledore's office. In fact, his only regret was that he would have to wait until September to do it again!

He stared down at the parchment in his hands—the last letter he would receive that summer—and growled. It wasn't even a good letter. The quill had been a bit dull, sending bits of ink spatter around as the headmaster scrawled out his short message at clearly breakneck speed. The ink hadn't even been properly blotted. To top it all off, it was singed from Fawke's fiery entrance. The bird had nearly given him a heart attack when it made its rapid delivery drop onto his bed and burned back out of sight,leaving him to hurriedly douse the letter's glowing edges before his sheets caught fire with him still tangled in them.

He realized he had clenched his fists with the letter trapped within them. He loosened his grip and flattened the parchment to read it again with the thought that, somehow, he had gotten the message all wrong.

Harry,
There is no time. There is . . (Harry frowned at the two drops of ink that betrayed the writer's hesitation) a crisis. The Order cannot watch over you. Stay indoors at all costs. Trust nothing. I've blocked Wizarding mail from Privet Drive, but a Muggle letter could be cursed. We will come once we can.
Stay safe, my boy.
A.D.

A crisis, the letter said. What crisis! Was it something so horrible that Dumbledore decided he hadn't the time to explain it, or, Harry raged silently in his mind, was the wizard leaving his boy deliberately in the dark, again?

Harry clenched shut his eyes and flopped back onto his mattress with a whump and the whine of old springs. What a lovely start to a summer vacation, he thought.

Just lovely.

XXX

Earlier that morning, before Albus Dumbledore had hurriedly put quill to parchment, a wizard named Edmund Westwood had sat beneath London and muttered into the front page of the Daily Prophet. "I can't believe it."

"Ooh, the dark lord's come back to life. Break out the vanishing cabinets and pickled pumpkin rations." At the voice, Edmund looked behind him, warily, at the jovial face of his boss just in time to watch the wizard to replace it with a scathing glare. Big Wallace folded his bulging arms. "Get back to work, you fool," he snapped.

Edmund smacked the paper with back of his hand. "Man, have you got no sense of priority?"

"You bet I do. Get back to work, or you're fired." Big Wallace grabbed the paper from Edmund and stalked off with it.

"Bloody slavedriver," Edmund muttered. With a sigh, he straightened, leaving his impromptu seat on a chunk of marble rubble, and shook out the back of his robes to knock loose some of the glittery white rock dust that seemed to be everywhere that morning in the Ministry of Magic's atrium. He snapped out a spell, vanishing the rock. After glancing about the small, cordoned-off area for any remaining rubble and finding none, he walked through the glow of the ward wall. A scratch of his wand against it as he went sent it collapsing with a puff. Instantly, he was surrounded by Ministry workers as the press of people shifted course to fill the new empty space. He shouldered through a clutch of whispering aides. You-Know-Who, You-Know-Who, they seemed to be chanting fearfully.

Edmund took a bracing breath in as he stepped through the main ward wall that encircled the destroyed Fountain of Magical Brethren. He hopped over a gold severed centaur leg before stopping to survey the shattered fountain basin. The thing was a mess of cracks, except for a spot just off the center, where a large, circular slab stubbornly held together in one piece. He turned and caught sight of first Big Wallace frowning at him and then a familiar set of dark blue robes. "Oi, Petey!" he called. "Give me a hand with this piece of rock here, will yeh?" He pointed at the massive hunk at the center of the fountain. "It's too big to vanish in one go."

Peter Northman sauntered up. Partway there, he cast an amused glance back at their thundery boss, and then he whistled, impressed, after taking in the size of the rock. He nudged Edmund with one shoulder. "Big Wallace giving you trouble again, mate?" he asked.

Edmund ducked his head down and muttered, "The man's acting like it's all no big deal." He waved away Peter and jumped up on the marble slab. "No, no, I'll tackle the far end. 'Get back to work,' he says. Well, that's easy enough for him to say; he's pure wizard some ten generations back. I got me a Muggle mother-in-law. That's hard enough to survive without this blood supremacy bollocks on top of it."

Peter rolled his shoulders and unholstered his wand. "You're telling me," he laughed humorlessly. "Me sister married a muggleborn, yeah? Second she heard it was starting up again, she flooed him and their boys to the States. Wish I had that sort of money right about now, but with this job?"

"Hey now!" Edmund protested and shook a finger at his coworker. "Don't go mocking the fine profession of magical repair"—he lowered his voice—"Big Wallace would bash our heads in for speaking ill of his ladylove." He shook out his arms. He hated the big vanishings. If apparition felt like being sucked through a tiny tube, vanishing felt like being the tube. He looked over the stone one more time before leveling his wand. "Right, then. On three? One. Two. Three!"

In tandem, they called out, "Vanesco!" and Edmund's head snapped back as white flooded his vision. He lowered himself to the ground, feeling out with his hand for a safe place to sit and stick his head between his knees.

"Whoo! I'm dizzy," he heard Peter say.

"Oh, bugger," he muttered. He rubbed at his temples as he waited for his vision to clear. "That rock did not want moved."

"Edmund…"

"Must have had a sticking charm on it. Damn. I thought we told these Ministry punks to cancel all the charms in the demolition area. Everyone knows you can't push through heavy enchantments. Dammit!"

"Edmund!" Peter shouted.

He winced. "What?"

"Open your eyes, you dolt!"

Experimentally cracking open one eye, he groaned at the flood of light. Then things slowly swam into place. There was some sort of tiled flooring under the fountain. He turned his head about and squinted to try to see just what the blazes they had unearthed. Carefully, he lowered himself down. He needed to clutch at the edge of the remaining statue ledge and stretch out his arms, and, even then, he needed to drop down the last two feet into the hole.

Peter jumped in after him, eyes bugging. Edmund looked up, then down. "I don't get it. There's a floor buried ten feet under the current one…and it's bloody gorgeous!" He bent down. There were twining runes made up of gold, lapis lazuli, and both black and white marble. "What the Hell were they thinking, covering this all up?"

Peter made a strangled noise, and he looked up. Edmund cocked his head curiously. His coworker was making desperate motions towards something to his right. That, or having a seizure. Edmund turned. At the center of the spiraling rune pattern was a plain gray rock and lodged in it… His brows shot up. "What's this then?" He stepped forward to crouch and peer at the broadsword shining in the atrium's dusty light. "There's some sort of inscription here: 'Whoever so pulleth out this sword, Excalibur…' It can't be."

He looked up at Peter, who waved a hand helplessly and said, "Mate, I can feel the power that thing's giving off from here. What is…is that doing there under a bunch of gaudy statues?"

Edmund paused when he heard Big Wallace's tenor voice cut through the area, giving some order to some hapless chap. He shook his head. "No…no. I don't want to know," he replied. "All I know is, it's got to come out. That basin for the new fountain's got to go in today, or our jobs are gone up in flames faster than a Horntail can make toast." He muttered a scanning spell and used his wand to sweep it over the area. A golden wash appeared, flowing from the blade of sword to ripple over the stone and onto the floor. He squinted and barely made out tiny ward sigils linked like chain mail armor…made for an ant. He had never seen anything like it. The enchantment was impenetrable. "Too much magic," he muttered. "Can't vanish it out, and can't move the rock, so…" he trailed off and peered at the hilt. The runes were larger and indicated some kind of lock. As for the key, he could guess. "One of us has got to pull it out."

Peter shook his head, looking spooked. "Alright. You do it."

Edmund walked up to the small dais that sword rested on, then stopped.

"Pull it out," Peter prodded. After a minute, he frowned. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

Edmund looked at his fried with a panicked grin. "I just realized, man. If this thing comes out, that makes me King of England, doesn't it?"

"Good point. Right, then." Peter stepped up and shooed Edmund off, saying, "I'll pull it out." He pulled back his robe sleeves and grasped the hilt.

Edmund waited and watched Peter tug and attempt to dislodge the blade from the sword. "It's not budging, Petey," he said eventually. He stepped up to the other side. "Let me have a go." He gave an experimental tug, then braced himself and heaved. He gave it another minute before stepping back with a disappointed sigh. "Nope. Nothing. I have to go tell Big Wallace there's an enchanted sword stuck in the middle of the bloody atrium. Well. It was nice knowing you."

"No, I'll do it." Peter clapped him on the shoulder. "Your Jadis has got a baby on the way. You lose your job, and she'll kill you."

Edmund hmphed. "Point. Well. It was nice knowing you."

Peter chuckled before allowing his face to show his slightly panicked expression. He hopped, caught a handhold on the top edge of the remaining fountain basin, and scrambled up. Edmund did the same and had retreated to a safe distance by the time Peter called out, "Boss! You better come see this!"

Big Wallace turned around, and Edmund wondered for the hundredth time if the man didn't have a bit of giant in there somewhere. "What is it now!" he boss bellowed as he stalked towards the hole to look where Peter was pointed. "Honest truth, lads, if one more thing with this job's gone wrong, I'll…oh my bloody soddin' hell."

Edmund's thoughts exactly.

Hello, all. This is my story, Sword from the Stone. I have a certain love of prologues because you can fill them with interesting characters that are never to be seen again. Canon purists are likely to hate me for it. In my defense, in the beginning there was Harry, Fawkes in passing, and Dumbledore's handwriting , so I hope you'll forgive dear Edmund Westwood, Peter Northman, Big Wallace, the unnamed sister, the dreaded Muggle mother-in-law, and the expecting Jadis Westwood for their brief, if humorously bumbling, existence. And, yes, C.S. Lewis; I ask his forgiveness, too. J.K. Rowling is merely thanked (very heartily, though) for her acceptance of fanfiction; upstanding lady, her.

Next time: Harry discovers yet again that the Wizarding World has skipped ahead a chapter without telling him. He is, understandably, not happy in the slightest. Also: laryngitis attacks!